


Valentine's Cookies

by Aithilin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Baked Goods, Fluff, M/M, Valentine's fluff, implied secrecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1189056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg Lestrade gets back to his desk to find that someone has left cookies for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentine's Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> Absolute, meaningless fluff for Sherstrade. I implied that Sherlock and Lestrade haven't told anyone that they're together-- mostly because I like the idea that neither of them thinks it's a matter for the public, and John and Mary seem the type of friends to try setting up friends who seem interested in each other. 
> 
> So it's fluff, and pointless.

They had gone stale by the time Lestrade actually found the little bag of baked goods tucked into a drawer in his desk. Granted it was a drawer he used a lot (it was certainly designated his ‘snack’ drawer for those days and weeks where he could barely move for the paperwork, and had to have _something_ handy to get him through the afternoon), but he had been out on casework more often than not for the past few days. The desk tended to be off limits when he had to run about after madmen consultants and chase down suspects— or put in time with his team to keep the lab running and the evidence they were directed to admissible. 

Some weeks, he just didn’t get to sit at the desk. Valentine’s week was one of them. 

There was a case— a murderer— who had gotten clever. It didn’t start off with the markings of a serial killer, and there was nothing to actually indicate that it was more than an isolated incident. Until the bodies started to appear with greater frequency. Until the newspapers fanned the flames with their dubbing of the killer the “Lovely Rose Killer” when a flower was found with two of the victims. That’s when it escalated and the connections in the press were made— roses and Valentine’s and pretty young women and men— and Lestrade knew that this was not going to end well. 

In the end, Sherlock had been called in. His own private case ended in a connection to the serial killer (a stalker working his way up to the intended victim, sick enough to think that he was leaving some grand gestures of love by eliminating his obsession’s ‘competition’), and they had been able to move quickly enough to close the whole damnable thing before the press egged the killings on any further. The woman would spend years in therapy for the guilt; the killer was set to appear for the start of the court processes in another few weeks. 

Lestrade, at least, had felt good that they had closed it before anyone else could get hurt. 

So he returned to his desk on the 17th, prepared to dump a fresh bag of candy and crisps into his stash to get him through the long hours of paperwork ahead. There were still lawyers to talk to, witnesses to get through, lab reports to file, and a thousand tiny details that had to be recorded and sorted and set in motion to hold up in court. 

He hadn’t expected to see the little packet of homemade cookies already set on his diminished pile of snacks. He’d judge them to be a few days old by now— stale and started to crumble around the edge, where they bumped each other as he jumped from chair to chase—old enough to have appeared during Sherlock’s last visit. 

For a moment, he toyed with the idea of having Anderson take a look at them. Sherlock may be as precise as a scientist with chemicals and formulas, but Lestrade had seen the state of that kitchen since John left. 

Instead, he picked up the little packet and it`s tiny red card. He almost expected to see a coy `from your secret admirer` in Sally`s writing, or a doctor`s scribble from John detailing that he put the gift together because Sherlock was too much of a coward to do it himself. He almost expected to see some sort of `Mary made me do it` note, or even something promissory and entirely un-Sherlockian. 

Instead was something very simple, and much more usual:

_Call me when you find these._

Settled into his chair, and the office as closed off as it could be around mid-morning, Lestrade called Sherlock. “Hello, sunshine.”

_“You’ve found them, then. I expected it to take you longer.”_

“Yeah, and I’m not touching them until you explain exactly what’s in them.”

Really, the cookies looked fine, if a bit battered from their isolated life and travels in (presumably) Sherlock’s pocket. He could handle store-bought, or baked by Mrs. Hudson; he just wasn’t sure about anything that shared oven space with toenails and cigarettes. 

_“Don’t be stupid. Mary made them. She insisted that I give them to you as a ‘Valentine’.”_

“So you shove them in my desk and time how long it takes for me to find them?”

_“Quite quickly. I thought it would be at least another few days.”_

He gave in, aware that his smile would be evident enough in his voice. “You really should tell them about us, sunshine. John nearly dropped a bucket of hints that you were working through Valentine’s before that case came up. He’s going to lock us in a room together soon, or punch me when he finds out how long we’ve been keeping quiet.”

_“Don’t be dramatic. Just eat the cookies so I can tell Mary that I’ve done my duty as a boyfriend and given you one of those romantic gifts she keeps on about.”_ A pause and the telltale sounds of glass against glass as Sherlock worked through some new mixture. _“If I use that term, how likely is she to hug me?”_

“It’s Mary, Sherlock.”

_“…Hit me, then.”_

“Tell them, and we’ll go out to the theatre before they can invite us ‘round for dinner.”

_“And the baked goods?”_

“They’re lovely.” Lestrade pulled at the packet to get at the stale cookies, amused by the pink and red frosting that he hadn’t been able to properly see before. “You’re lovely.”

_“Stop it.”_

“Make me.”

Lestrade grinned through the first bite— given how quickly the call disconnected, he knew that Sherlock would be in a sulk over his playful sentiment for at least another hour. It would be an hour of quiet, enough to get started on the work ahead of him and pair up the stale cookies with terrible coffee the next time Sally poked her head through the door to check in.


End file.
